While it’s been four years since TikTok got banned in India, it has been steadily seeing growth in regions where its supported. The App has also constantly gained new features, the latest one of which is the group chats feature where TikTok users can create groups with up to 32 participants.
TikTok announced the feature via a Newsroom post, which read, “Group Chat harnesses this power, allowing you to create a shared viewing experience with friends, family, and communities.” As a result, users can now watch, comment, and react together in real time on TikTok, making every interaction more dynamic and connected. People can curate dedicated groups with up to 32 participants through group chats and easily share the videos of their choice.
Group Chat, like Direct Messaging, is not available for those users aged 13 to 15. For those who are 16 or 17 years old, TikTok has implemented some safety measures within Group Chats to block communication with strangers. For example, anyone, including teenagers, can only be added to a group chat by someone who is a mutual follower. If a teenager receives an invitation to join a group chat, they won’t be able to join unless there is at least one mutual friend already in the group.
Aside from that, “to help everyone feel comfortable with who they are messaging, people will be able to use muting and blocking tools and also report messages or the entire chat if they are concerned content violates our Community Guidelines,” read the post. TikTok will also limit the number of groups someone can create and the number of times a message can be forwarded.
Finally, Stickers support has also been added to DMs on TikTok. “Stickers provide fun and creative visual chat options that encourage the community to create and upload their own custom stickers for everyone to use,” said TikTok.